In another of our blog posts on Spanish nouns that can be masculine or feminine depending on meaning we look at the main senses of corte.
You can listen to the pronunciation of corte in the audio clip below:
Una corte is feminine when referring to a royal court or a court of law:
Conserva alguna influencia en la corte.
She still has some influence at court.
La Corte advirtió que no se puede establecer una diferenciación salarial en virtud del sexo.
The Court advised that gender cannot be used as the basis for pay differentiation.
In the feminine plural, las Cortes is the name given to the Spanish parliament:
la restauración de las Cortes españolas en 1810
the restoration of the Spanish parliament in 1810
Un corte is masculine when it’s a cut or when it has anything to do with cutting:
Me he hecho un corte bastante grande en la mano.
I’ve given myself quite a bad cut on the hand or I’ve cut my hand quite badly.
El corte estaba hecho con el mismo cuchillo que se halló en manos del acusado.
The cut had been made with the very knife found in the possession of the accused.
Ahora luce un nuevo corte de pelo.
He’s now sporting a new haircut.
El corte is used in tailoring and dressmaking to refer both to the cut/style of a garment and to a length of fabric:
Los shorts tienen un corte elegante y moderno.
The cut or style of the shorts is elegant and modern.
un corte de tela barata
a length of cheap fabric
El corte is used of interruptions or cuts to a service or power supply:
En algunas zonas, se registraron cortes intermitentes del servicio de energía eléctrica y de las líneas telefónicas.
In some areas there were intermittent power cuts or power outages and telephone line failures.
El corte en el suministro de gas no afectará a los establecimientos comerciales.
The gas cut-off won’t affect commercial establishments.
Persisten los cortes de suministro de agua a la población.
The population is still experiencing water cut-offs.
Un corte (masculine) is also a track on a record or recording:
uno de los cortes del disco
one of the tracks on the record
DID YOU KNOW?
The well-known department store El Corte Inglés began life as a sastrería madrileña (a Madrid tailor’s shop) in 1890. Its name, meaning ‘the English cut or style’ refers to a particular style and quality of suit.
To read about another noun that can be either masculine or feminine in Spanish depending on the sense, come back next week.
